IOC director A K Singh to head Petronet LNG
IndianOil director (pipelines) Akshay Kumar Singh will head India’s largest gas importing company, Petronet LNG, sources close to the company’s board-appointed selection committee said. Singh will succeed Prabhat Singh, who completed his 5-year term in September but did not get extension for two years that he was eligible for. In March, the oil ministry told Parliament in a written reply it had received several allegations of alleged corruption/irregularities against Prabhat Singh. This will mark Singh’s return to the gas business as he was executive director in state-run gas utility GAIL before joining the IndianOil board in 2018 as in charge of the company’s substantial pipeline networkThis will mark Singh’s return to the gas business as he was executive director in state-run gas utility GAIL before joining the IndianOil board in 2018 as in charge of the company’s substantial pipeline network. A mechanical engineer from MIT, Muzaffarpur (Bihar) and a post-graduate in turbomachinery from South Gujarat University, Singh has about 34 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. At IndianOil, Singh red-flagged a move to hive off the company’s vast network of pipelines and storage depots, a vital infrastructure that gave India’s largest fuel refiner and retailer an edge in the market. At Petronet, his primary challenge will be tackling the pricing conundrum of long-term contracts in the backdrop of falling spot prices. Singh has experience in executing challenging, complex and large-size cross-country pipeline networks. He is also experienced in design engineering, planning, execution and operation of hydrocarbon pipeline systems and process plants. Petronet is a private company floated by state-run oil majors GAIL, IOC, ONGC and BPCL. All of the promoters hold 12.5 per cent equity stake each. Chairmen of promoter PSUs are normally the nominee director on the Petronet board, while the petroleum secretary is the ex-officio chairman.
Oil operators get DUCs in a row, adding fracking crews to boost output
US frackers are bringing back equipment even as oil prices languish around $40 a barrel in a bid to boost production and tap into a backlog of drilled wells left uncompleted (DUCs) when oil prices crashed earlier this year. The number of active hydraulic fracturing fleets has climbed by nearly 50% since mid-September to 127, according to data from consultancy Primary Vision, outpacing a roughly 17% jump in the number of active drilling rigs over that same period of time. That count stands at 296. US oil prices were trading around $38.53 a barrel on Thursday, below profitable levels in some US producing basins. Still, hydraulic fracturing equipment is headed back to the field, as oil companies are trying to deal with the swift rate at which shale well production falls. US shale production is expected to fall to 7.7 million barrels per day in November, down from 9.2 million bpd in February, before prices crashed, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Fracking was the first thing to get shut down when oil prices collapsed because it’s the most expensive part of drilling and completing a well, said Andy Hendricks, chief executive officer of driller Patterson-UTI Energy. When prices rose, operators brought back frack crews to complete wells that were drilled but not yet completed, accounting for a big bump in frack activity. The companies that specialize in well completions, like ProPetro Holding Corp and Liberty Oilfield Services , have said they are adding back workers. “Oil focused operators and basins are trying to manage decline curves,” said Matt Johnson, chief executive of Primary Vision. The US added as many as 1,200 DUCs in May, according to analysis from consultancy Enverus, but began completing wells at a faster rate than rigs could drill them starting around July. In October, operators were burning through DUCs at a rate of roughly 200 a month, Enverus said. That pace could slow, Hendricks warned. “I don’t expect big increases in frack activity from where we are. We just don’t have the inventory,” he said referencing drilled-but-uncompleted wells. Apache Corp suspended drilling and fracking in the Permian Basin shale field in April, but said on Thursday during a call with analysts that it has hired two crews to complete a backlog of about 45 wells. “We are now seeing very compelling service costs in the Permian Basin,” said CEO John Christmann. Patterson-UTI, which has a larger contract drilling portfolio than hydraulic fracturing, bottomed out at four hydraulic fracturing fleets in June, but will average six fleets this quarter. Rival ProPetro is anticipated to average 9.5 fleets in the fourth quarter, versus four fleets in the second quarter of this year, according to analysts at investment firm Evercore ISI.